Thinking Out Loud

After a busy day in the volcanic mountains we were away to the Old Lahaina Luau.  Lots of good food and a beautiful sunset for desert.

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More than anything, I wanted to see a volcano while I was in Hawaii.  Unfortunately, there are no live volcanoes on Maui.  I knew that before I left.  The next best thing would be to see an extinct volcano crater.

The Haleakala Highway takes you to Haleakala National Park.  It’s a narrow winding road that takes you from about a 1000 feet above sea level to a little over 10,000.  And at the top you can see the collapsed crater of a volcano.  Perfect.

Sherry was driving, and all was good until we passed a sign that said, “Turn headlights on while driving through clouds.”  Haleakala means “the land above the clouds.”  That’s when Herb began to clutch the arm rest.  White knuckled, he mentioned about every fifty feet of the climb, “We are very, very, very, friggin high.”  The rest of his conversation usually contained something like, “Do you have to drive so close to the side of the road?”

Sherry was driving perfectly.  I don’t know what would have happened if she was a little nervous about the road.  I think Herb would have simply passed out.  Read the rest of this entry »

Sherry and Herb wanted to go shopping today.  Of course, that didn’t interest me very much, but I tagged along with them because I told them I knew how to get to Lahaina.  I thought a couple of hours of souvenir shopping, and then we could do something else.  But the conversation on the way soon led to the impression this was going to be an all day event.

Uh oh.  Time to move into alternate plan persuasion mode.

I convinced them to take a drive towards the western end of the island, and maybe head up to Haleakala National Park.  We bought a road map and turned around with just a little griping from Sherry.

Our first stop was the Kula Botanical Gardens. Read the rest of this entry »

According to Wikipedia, Pele’s Curse is the belief that anything natively Hawaiian, such as sand, rock, or pumice, will effect bad luck on whoever takes it away from Hawaii.

So how come I pissed here off?  I had an impossible run of bad luck while I was in Hawaii, and I swear I never even picked up so much as a grain of sand with the intention of taking it with me.

Here’s the major bouts of bad luck thrown at me… Read the rest of this entry »